The Long Way Home
by Never.A.Morning.Person
Summary: The boy and his demon take a walk.
1. Intro

**A/N:** Let's pretend the second season never happened.

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**THE LONG WAY HOME**

_.sometimes they come back._

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_Intro._

When the man comes, the boy is waiting, clad in black velvet and the early morning sunlight. He is small, pale and regal and –mercifully, thankfully- exactly as he used to be. The cruel October sun bites, but it is kind only to him, turning his white skin and dark hair into something spectacular, something ethereal and unreal.

Sebastian –the man, the demon- takes a moment to observe the child and thinks in broken, tangled threads, thinks something along the lines of _oh_ and _Ciel_ and _thank you_. He thinks and he _feels, _the sensation suffocating and unfamiliar, it's bittersweet and warm; not anger or lust, gluttony or envy. It isn't any of the deadly sins, he knows their taste all too well. This… This is new. This is fire between his fingers and something like breath in his lungs, like a heartbeat thrumming under his icy skin, a knot tight in his chest.

_Ciel._

The demon _wants_, and this is also new and unsettling. It's not the greed he knows, nor the lust he's used to. It's a need, a desire, raw and human around the edges. He _wants. _He wants to taste and touch and smell, to close the distance with huge strides and bury his face in the crook of the boy's porcelain neck, breathe in his scent and relearn the shape of his shoulders, the dip of his spine. He wants to graze those bony knees with his teeth, trace the tiny knuckles with the whorls of his fingers and remember, remember what it felt like to touch, back when he could, back when he was allowed to.

"You're late." The child's voice cuts through the air like a whip and speaks nothing but the truth. It hits the demon like a slap on the face.

For the first time in centuries, Sebastian doesn't have a ready answer. _Forgive me _are the treacherous words that creep upon his lips, but he holds them in, fights them back, because they are not an answer, they are an admittance of defeat. _Forgive me, _it could mean anything, nothing, everything, it could mean _I'm sorry I'm late _and it could mean _I surrender, you've won_. And even though this new world is strange and metallic, even though the boy he wants is nothing but the imprint of a soul, shattered and spent, he is still Young Master, the demon is still Sebastian, and the game between them still stands. A game of chess, only the pieces are all on the same side now.

"I've kept you waiting." Sebastian utters finally, and he even manages a smirk and a small bow. It's not a question, it's a statement, a certainty, smug, self-satisfied and daring. The kind of thing that would have earned him a sneer or a haughty reprimand back then when Ciel had air in his lungs and blood in his veins.

The boy's gray eyes move to Sebastian's face for the first time, sharp and stern under thin, knitted eyebrows, conveying a message, but Sebastian does not catch it, does not care about it. Because there's that inexplicable _thing _happening in the creature's chest again, that fluttering weakness in his ribcage, that need to _reach out _and _feel _and oh, _hold, hold on. _

_I've kept you waiting._ Perhaps it was a question after all. Perhaps it's like a silver coin, two sides to it, the same meaning, just different symbols, different words. _Have you missed this?_ Sebastian thinks he's become more complicated than he'd ever wish to be.

"I don't mind." Ciel's reply is curt and his eyes drift away as his fingers start moving idly, tracing circles on his white knees. "And I wasn't waiting," he adds in a dead, uninterested tone, not snappish or annoyed like it should be. He is tired. On the shining white steps of their old house in a different London, he looks like a lost boy, like the trail of breadcrumbs didn't lead home after all. It tricked him and brought him stumbling to a wicked place where he doesn't belong, where everything is only almost real, a reflection of the world he once knew.

"It just gets terribly dull sometimes." The piercing eyes grip Sebastian's gaze again, and they are so deceivingly _alive_, nothing lost or confused in their depth. Ciel is not breathing but he is _here,_ still and always in control, strong and dominant.

Sebastian is surprised to find himself wondering maybe it's _him_, maybe _he's_ out of place, the odd one out, a black knight in an all-white chessboard.

He pushes that thought away. It is of no importance. There is no place where he belongs.

The wind is cold and it blows through them both, a distant reminder of lost mortality.

"Let's take a walk," the demon suggests politely after a few moments of mutual silence, extending his gloved hand, a toss of the dice or a peace offering. Ciel nods quietly and stands up, but doesn't take it.

_TBC_

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**A/N: **Yeah, I know, this makes no sense. But there will be a few more (short) chapters, and hopefully everything will be clear then. Thanks for reading.


	2. Bloomsbury

**A/N: **Thank you very much everyone for your reviews. It's a great support, and you're awesome.

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**THE LONG WAY HOME**

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_Bloomsbury._

When Ciel says he wants to go to Bloomsbury Sebastian realizes he no longer remembers names and places, but he remembers how to follow orders, how to make insane things possible just because he was asked. Hell burns away everything, but this is some sort of muscle memory that has sunk too far deep under the demon's skin, and his entire body, down to the very last nerve ending, reacts to his once master's voice like it's Sebastian's sole reason for existence.

He gets them to Bloomsbury at the blink of an eye and then glances at the boy's pale face, searching for a trace of the slightest surprise; this is a trick he never showed the child when he was still alive. There is none, and Sebastian doesn't know if he's glad or not, doesn't know if Ciel's blank expression means that he never lost faith in the demon's endless abilities or that he simply doesn't care enough to be amazed.

The memory of a faded life reconstructs itself around Sebastian, he knows this place, remembers the rustle of leaves to a strong wind, his master's cane clicking on the pavement, echoing in an empty street. His master's shoulder pressed to his hip, the top of the boy's head. Another case for the Queen's hound to slave over, bark and bite and risk his life over, and back then Sebastian wondered why Ciel wasted his time fighting fights that weren't his, why he cared about the temporary queen of a temporary England when his own days were so unfairly numbered. The demon now thinks Ciel wanted to be remembered. A human wish, the need for his name to be carved someplace where it wouldn't get washed away, a remnant of his existence that was fated to be short and drowned in shadows.

"Let's go," the child orders again as if nothing has changed. And everything has, they're standing in the middle of a street with people passing through them like they're made out of smoke, with cars roaring on the asphalt and bright signs bearing strange words, spelling out just how much time has passed. The city is a new kind of jungle, all metallic beasts and new rules, but Sebastian is a skeleton key, made to open any lock, and nothing scares him. He half expects the boy to go into shock though, to curve into a ball and tremble, like most old souls do when faced with blatant change, proof of a world that has kept spinning without them. But Ciel just marches to Russell Square, calm and unaffected, and Sebastian reminds himself that the child wouldn't have survived if he weren't strong. "Are you coming?" Ciel calls, annoyed to see the demon lagging behind, and Sebastian cherishes the harshness in his voice and breathes _yes._

Sebastian recalls Russell Square as a fleeting blur of tall trees with whispering leaves over stained gray tiles that held no real importance, that was nothing more than a distance to cross before getting to someplace else, the place they needed to be, a meeting, a case, a formal dinner. Ciel had never expressed the wish to stop. Perhaps the thought had never even crossed his mind, that he could actually stay still for a moment and sit on a bench, do nothing, nothing but breathe in and breathe out and watch the patches of light shift on the ground.

But this time Ciel doesn't cut through the square at the speed of light. This time he walks, his pace slow and drowsy, and Sebastian follows him, one step behind, there, but out of sight. The boy's hands are linked behind his back, and Sebastian interprets this as a restraint. And he knows what this is, this pointless little stroll. It's a lament for all things passed, for chances lost, moments squandered. He recognizes the boy's tight grip on his own fingers as the blinding desire to feel something, but simultaneously as the instinct of self-preservation. Ciel is shielding himself. Because everyone knows that ghosts cannot feel anything.

Sebastian flexes the fingers of his right hand and thinks about placing them on the boy's shoulder like he used to, and smelling the little lord's irritation in the air, tasting his confusion -was this belittlement, was it a taunt, or was it nothing more than a habitual gesture with no meaning at all. Sebastian had always liked the way the child read too much into every single thing he did or said, how tried to go three layers down, wanting to unmask the demon's words, thinking that behind each one lay a curse or a reminder of damnation. Ciel would never forget that it was a maze of smoke and mirrors he was caught in, and every night the demon blew out the candles and whispered _goodnight My Lord, _the child scowled and thought of deathbeds and tossed in his sleep.

Ciel is humming under his breath and Sebastian closes his hand to a tight fist. He won't touch the boy. He won't touch him if Ciel can't feel it, if he can't shrug the gloved hand away. _For you, _Sebastian thinks, eyes pinned to the back of Ciel's neck, right where his hair is curling slightly. _Because you'd hate it. _A favor, to honor the aftertaste of devotion that still lingers on his tongue. That, and something else, something weaker and trembling, the desire to delude himself. Because if his hand doesn't cut through the child's pale flesh, then Ciel isn't just a shadow. And everyone knows that nobody can touch a ghost.

There's a water-fountain in the middle of Russell Square that Sebastian always thought of as a trap, some long-dead architect's prank on unsuspecting passersby, the way there is no warning, white water springing straight from the ground. Ciel is standing in front of it, determined and courageous in the line of his shoulders, the steady curve of his neck, and Sebastian thinks he's already been forgotten. The child won't look at him and even though Sebastian isn't human enough to feel hurt, the transition is strange, because there was a time when his master's heavy gaze would never leave him, pulling them together like a string or a leash or a chain tied to their wrists, reminding them of how this ownership ran both ways.

And now, Ciel is staring at a water-fountain that he had never even noticed before, hands no longer linked behind his back, and Sebastian thinks that he could leave, couldn't he, leave like he did in Paris, abandon the child yet again in an unfamiliar world and marvel at his perfect lack of feeling. But he doesn't move, maybe because he isn't entirely certain about his lack of feeling anymore, maybe because the chord between him and the boy was never properly severed and there are still silver links tying them to each other, because misery loves company.

"Sebastian." And now, Sebastian can't move because the child called his name and it wasn't the beginning of an order, it was a tremulous whisper, a shaky little breath, but the demon's lips still want to leer and say _my Lord. _But even that is washed away when Ciel turns around with water dripping from his fingers and murmurs "Cold, it's cold."

A yank of the chain, that's all it takes, and then Sebastian's on his knees in front of the child, Ciel who is trembling and gasping like he's drowning or relearning how to breathe. Sebastian fights his gloves with teeth and fingers, fights to get his hands on the icy skin, and when he does, the world halts to a stop, all levels of heaven and hell and everything in between narrowing down to those frozen hands that he can _feel. _The child gasps at the contact.

Sebastian covers Ciel's hands with his own, trying to warm them up or establish that they're real or mold them into something new and entirely his, like the child's soul had once been. Ciel stares up at him, eyes dark and dangerous, like seeing an ancient enemy, someone he's hated for so long that the lines have blurred. He digs his nails into the demon's pale wrists, a silent _don't let go, _red crescent-shaped wounds marking the flesh like invisible shackles.

Sebastian finds that fitting, and holds on.


	3. Tavistock Square

**A/N: **Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed. Feedback keeps me going!

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**THE LONG WAY HOME**

_

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Tavistock Square._

Sebastian wishes the boy hadn't taken his hand away. He would have preferred to continue this walk with the tiny fingers wedged between his, depending on him, clinging, demanding, _there_. But there is a statue in Tavistock Square, and it caught Ciel's eye, so he slipped his hand away from the demons' and walked over to it without a second thought.

Ciel's dainty finger now slides down the creases of the ancient face carved out of melting bronze. He traces the brows and the lip and the closed, tired eyes. Sebastian observes him from a distance and thinks this is a successful replica of a man that once was. He had met him, once, when he was still alive and Sebastian was… well, not Sebastian at all.

The child is biting his lip in concentration, his eyes are dark and studious. The demon can only guess why he's is doing this, for the same reason he held out his hand towards the freezing water and he kept clutching Sebastian's fingers long after his skin was warm again. Sebastian can replay the child's fragile surprise perfectly in his brain, the quiver of his mouth and the thrumming of his pulse, the shock at being able to touch and feel again, at reliving the sensation of cold and warm and water and flesh.

Sebastian tilts his head, slightly. It is so odd, the way the child's hands are moving on the lifeless statue, with something like reverence, something like longing. But it makes sense. Isn't this what he always wanted? The memory of his existence crystallized and preserved somewhere for the world to see and shower with rose petals. He wanted to remain. _Perhaps_, Sebastian muses, _I am the only one that remembers you._ It is a dangerous thought, venomous and exciting. Gives the demon back some leverage, some control, a morsel of power.

"Who is that?" Ciel asks, not looking at Sebastian, his hands still mapping out the wrinkled, old face, the protruding collarbones, the bony chest in a careful, slow caress. Sebastian regards him curiously, because this is clearly a question the boy can very well answer for himself. "You know who that is, my Lord," he replies quietly, even though simply answering would have been much easier.

"It seems." Ciel breathes and fixes his eyes on his demon, "It seems I have forgotten some things." He utters this with no sign of embarrassment. It's just an observation, the truth. He is not ashamed. Sebastian is surprised. It is unlike the boy to admit weakness.

"It is Gandhi," the demon says, with the faintest smile. He steps closer and holds out his hand for the boy to take. He does. Sebastian helps him climb back down and Ciel lets go of his hand once his feet are safely on the ground. "Do you remember who that is?" Sebastian asks then, in the same calm tone he used when he would lift his masters arms and press gloved fingers to his ribs, whispering _tell me where it hurts. _It is a tone that the boy used to hate fiercely; it reminded him that he was small and breakable. But this time, he doesn't seem to care. "No." he replies simply. "I have forgotten." Maybe he just forgot.

_How much? _Sebastian wonders. _How much have you forgotten?_

He explains in a few, counted words who Gandhi was and what he did. The child listens, and in the end he nods quietly and puts his hand on the statue's knee, like an expression of solidarity.

"He is a man," Ciel states plainly. "Not a king or a god." Ciel Phantomhive, a ghost, is impressed by Gandhi's mortality. Sebastian fights back a grin and the urge to tell him that kings are men too, and sometimes gods as well. This is not what the child needs. Sebastian doesn't know what the child needs anymore. It feels strange, because back then, it was the only thing he was sure of. Be it cakes or flavored tea with biscuits or someone to rescue him, to cut the ropes from his wrists or jump after him in the dark waters, Sebastian always knew. A sixth sense, of sorts.

"He is a leader," the demon hums after a few moments of silence. "And to some, a god."

Ciel nods, again. Did he understand? He is so quiet, it's unsettling. He steps away from the statue, and walks to one of the benches, the wood shiny and polished by rainwater. He sits down, hands gripping the seat tightly. He needs to feel. _Queen Elisabeth II. _It is etched on the bench's back, and Sebastian wonders if Ciel has noticed, if he knows he's sitting on a queen. Does he remember that the Queen Mother used to mean something? That it was an iron ball tied to his ankle, one he polished and loved?

_Or have you forgotten._

The sun is so very bright. It makes the child seem transparent, a flame about to go out. Sebastian wonders when that will happen. There are things he needs to know.

"Do you think Agni built one for Soma?" the boy asks suddenly, silver orbs gripping Sebastian's face despite the distance. "After all, Soma was his god."

Sebastian raises his eyebrows at the question. It is such a pointless thing to ask, so unlike Ciel Phantomhive. He had never cared much for the two men with the dark skin and the silken clothes, he just wanted them off his back and out of his house_. _Still, if that is what he wants, Sebastian will comply. "It doesn't seem impossible, my Lord," Sebastian murmurs. Yes, somewhere in India, it might be there. The statue of the most overrated, pampered prince, built by the divine hands of his one and only worshipper, the man that loved him blindly and followed him like a child and a brother and a slave.

The demon finds Ciel still staring at him, impatient and expectant, like he just threw a hint that the demon failed to catch. His eyes are shining and his expression is bordering on exasperated, and Sebastian wonders what he did wrong. Ciel has the answer to his pointless question, what does he-

_Oh._

The demon almost smiles, something set loose in his chest. The child gives him the shadow of a nod. _Yes_.

_You remember._

_TBC_


	4. Starbucks Coffee, Tavistock Place

**A/N: **Sebastian's POV scares the shit out of me.

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**THE LONG WAY HOME**

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_Starbucks Coffee, Tavistock Place._

"_Take me."_

The child's fingers are white from folding into themselves and the demon stares at him, deep and long and grinning, reminding him silently -and not without a fair amount of evil contentment- that he can't comply to an order so poorly phrased, he is not a mind-reader –and that here is a bit of a lie now, isn't it- and if he were to follow this particular command, follow it to _the letter, _the result might not be so much to his once-master's…tastes.

They are standing outside a Starbucks coffee shop in Tavistock Square –so, _so _out of place, Sebastian laments with an internal shiver, but he'd deny it if you asked him.

"Sebastian."

The boy's tongue is like whips, a verbal cat o' nine tails, cutting through flesh with just four syllables. Sebastian inhales the cold London air that is infected by the little lord's exasperation. It's evident and weak- he has missed this. Pacing around gray streets, under dark clouds and the threat of rain, with a haughty child at his heel, misusing his name and glaring at him, it is all as familiar as crème brulée. It makes up for the unfamiliar place, the plastic green letters looming above their heads.

"Young Master," the demon sighs, "you will have to be a little more specific." The smirk in his voice is evident and unintentional. Perhaps that's why Ciel doesn't comment on it, doesn't even think it worthy of a frown. "What is it you want," the demon asks again, and the boy huffs, _if I could tell you, imbecile, wouldn't I have?_

And Sebastian has been doing this forever, vexing Ciel for no reason at all- no reason other than to let him get away with blasphemy, have him easily cursing at a power so much stronger than him, insulting when he should be fearing, sneering when he should be begging, knees trembling, bowels malfunctioning, the whole nine yards. Every time Ciel snapped at him about anything, from the mansion's flower arrangements to his swordfighting technique –which was, is, and will be impeccable-, each and every time his little fist found the tabletop in a declaration of power and defiance, Sebastian knew he had forged that contract for a reason-demons just want to have fun.

_It's not so fun now, is it? _a serpent's tongue hisses in his head, and it sounds dangerously close to that thing humans call a conscience, just a fancy name for second-guessing. Sebastian has never regretted a thing in his life- now, here's another lie. Sebastian doesn't know when he started lying to himself, and more importantly, when his lies started falling through like empty coats.

Regret, Sebastian sometimes…

Sometimes he regrets the boy dying so soon. Their time was so short, the space of a breath in demon years and he. He had so many more ways he could have toyed with him. Prodded at his pride, tickled his weaknesses, pricked at his false hopes. If Ciel had lived to sixteen, eighteen, Sebastian would have seen the boy grow taller and utter orders at his own eye-level and there would be a day when the butler wouldn't have to bend in half just to serve him jasmine tea, fix his crooked tie. And Sebastian would have done things too, put his mouth and hands to use, he would have crossed boundaries and tested limits, just because he could, because he can, he would have _touched_, he would have _claimed _and _marked. _So many more games they could have played -clothes both on and off-, if only the child had been given a few more years, decades, eons-

It doesn't matter-human things, trivial, ephemeral, _too much like the lightning_. Ciel speaks again, or tries to. "Take me to-" his sentence cracks in half, and he stomps his foot on the wet, gray pavement. It makes no sound.

"Do you not remember?" Sebastian asks him carefully, "Or is it that you cannot say it?" For all he knows, there might be words ghosts are not allowed to use, and Ciel being _Ciel _wants to do exactly that, defiant to the laws of the supernatural- rebelling against a lifetime crippled by rules and protocol and savoir faire.

Ciel averts his eyes from the demon's face, and Sebastian mimics him, not wanting to hold on to one end of a connection that has snapped. He seeks, searches, looks for something to focus on other than tempestuous gray eyes. He settles for the pavement.

Ciel squeezes his hands together and doesn't even notice the girl in the red hat that walks right through him, smelling like cinnamon and cream. Another one follows, leather and coffee, speaking loudly in a language that sounds suspiciously like ancient Greek. Sebastian looks up, raises his eyebrows and follows the two of them as they walk down the street, down and down and down, stares at them until the futility of it hits him- he doesn't _want_ to look anywhere else.

He drops his eyes back to the boy, to the top of his bowed head, his fine hair turning white by the sun. Ciel is standing in front of a _Starbucks coffee shop, _bleached out by sunlight, with people walking through him, -a girl and a boy this time, she's wearing red shoes and his hair is the color of boiled carrots- fighting to get words out his throat, and he suddenly turns and grabs the lapels of Sebastian's coat, hard and demanding, and says _I want._

I want.

It's so sudden, a mouthful on the old Ciel shoved down his throat, a reminder that he is _here_, _now_ and Sebastian could kiss him, really, bend at the knee and kiss him on the lips, say, _of course you do. _

"I want." And Sebastian has to use his hand to hide his canines because he's smiling again, and it's fond, so terribly fond, so terribly, horribly fond, it is, _whatever you want, anything, just name it._

"Take me to the clock," the boy chews out finally, panting and almost sweating for all his non-existence and his bones that are ashes and dust. His hand twists in the demon's coat, tugging closer, closer, until their foreheads are almost touching, much like those nights, long long ago, when he used to trap the demon by his sleeve and insist on chasing the nightmares away by hissing them through his teeth, one word at a time.

_TBC_

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**A/N: **Thank you to all the lovely people who reviewed the last chapter! The next one is coming soon. I think.


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